ADVENTURES IN BODEDOM - Excitement 1

DEPLANING DAH PLANE:

As a teenager I was often on the tractor. I often dreamed of any beautiful young girl, walking through the field, suddenly hurrying through the furrows of soil toward me. That was a dream; that girl nor any at all ever came. My life was boring, but it was adventurous.

Today is about my adventures in airporting. Again, it was when I was bored.

I was sitting quietly in the tarmac waiting area, reading I suppose, because that was what I always did. Well, not always, as a backyard mechanic, I often laid beneath my car. My secretary, years before, had asked me, “Why do you always begin your stories with I was under the car?”

That day I was not under the car; I was sitting inside the tarmac doing what I often did when I was not under the car. My business was the car, specifically General Motors cars.

As I looked past all the invisible characters walking by, I could see through the windows at Nashville International Airport. I liked to look at the excitement outside, as if there was any excitement there.

I could hear the roar of a jet engine. I did not look up. Roaring engines are common at huge airports. What else should I expect at an international airport?

I grew up in the era of low-flying bombers and sonic booms. The roar of an engine would not startle me anymore than me taking a swipe at a pesky low-flying bumblebee.

Now occupied by whatever magazine that I could find in a seat, or perhaps even a newspaper from a distant city; the roar turned into a kaboom as the jet decelerated from maybe 500 miles per hour to a dead stop in about 1 nano-second. That did sound serious, and I was encouraged by all the startled people to get up as the herd ran to the window to see gravity in action.

My mind was already occupied by a crooked politician in New York City. That was more interesting to me than a rumored plane crash! This is just one of my eight-million stories that I have of my adventures in boredom.

You may think that I should have been interested but it was 1996. I had lost my interest in airports beginning with an early adventure.

Between my high school graduation until my first year in college, I had worked at Weir Cook Airport in Indianapolis. It is now Indianapolis International Airport.

Speaking of boredom, my job that summer was mowing the grass along  the streets and between the runways at that huge airport. It was so large that my partner and I would never finish before we had to start all over. I saw everything imaginable, but this one time it was me.

I didn’t know it, not because I am stupid, but was never informed; no vehicle could cross a runway without a safety light from the tower.

Remember the beginning of my story? That could have been me.

I had finished mowing one landing strip field and had headed to the garage headquarters for lunch.

I normally peed while I was mowing, me acting as if I was working on the tractor. I usually waved to those on the big planes whose eyes had invaded my 400-acre restroom.

I sit there on my big blue Ford Tractor on what many would consider a throne. This airport was mine! I was king of Weir Cook that day!

I pulled up to the edge of the runway and stopped short as I should. On either side of the tractor were runway lights. Expecting nothing from my left, I looked to my right… nothing was coming except a Boeing 747. It was taxiing toward the building after landing on the landing strip. There was always a landing and a taxi strip, one opposed to the other in direction.

Not that I was stupid enough to race a 747 landing that day; but I was stupid enough to race a 747 taxiing that day. I was doing a stupid thing, but I was a country boy in the city. I often did really stupid things. 

I won! All the people on board were proud of me. I could see them waving. I was their hero! There eyes were bulged with admiration for sure.

My glory lasted about 33-1/3 seconds. With lights flashing, a speeding police car was soon beside me. Surely, he was proud of my adventure in stupidity, but he was not very impressed.

It was an airport policeman. He had authority to ticket me. If it had been international at that time, I would still be lingering in some federal prison. I got off with a stern warning and the cop became my friend. Stupid people need friends!

If I had lost the race, you know, the one that I was showing off during May of 1967, I would have heard a big boom; a boom much like the boom that I did hear nearly thirty-years later in a place far away from Indy — Nashville, Tennessee.

At Indy, the sirens and flashing lights got my attention. Years later, not even the boom got my attention for long. I was too interested in that crook in New York City to care why everybody was running toward the window right in front of me.

Nearly thirty years of travel had made me numb to the goings on at airports. I had seen and heard it all, and I was not about to get up just to see what sounded like a crash. What if it was just a boom; then the crook in New York would not have gotten recognition from me!

Later that evening, I heard about it. I had been right there, but was too preoccupied to even glance through the window. I had been so acclimated to the boredom of the airport that I had missed the most exciting thing that ever happened there; not that crashing a plane was exciting, but can you imagine the pilot? Can you imagine how fast that plane landed, nose straight down.

The pilot saw a crash like he would never see again. At least he died a hero. There is a fine line between idiots and heroes, and he may have defined it.

Years later, I read the news. That is what I always have done. I had missed the action because I was too busy reading.

A friend of mine was asked when we traveled on one occasion, “Do you prefer a seat to the front or rear?” My friend remarked, “I don’t care; they get there about the same time, don’t they?”

That day, that jet’s rear did get there about the same time as its front. My colleague, stupid as he was, realized that given enough impact, the front and rear do get there about the same time!

My friend did ask for a backseat, though. He had never heard of a plane backing into a mountain, he assured the woman at the ticket counter. For the Jet pilot, that would not matter.

For those who are young, reading is what earlier generations would do before they had memes. Get the picture?

I learned about what I had missed later that day. I always complained about boredom and how slow cows eat, but I was not curious enough to even look up.

The Navy said today that a pilot was probably showing off for his parents when he crashed an F-14A jet fighter in Nashville in January, killing himself, a fellow officer and three people on the ground. (Weiner, 1996)

 The pilot was showing off to impress his parents. I raced a 747 to impress the people on the plane. I saw the pilot of that plane. I could read his lips… “You stupid blankety blank!!!!!” (He used five exclamation points, as I could tell from his grinding teeth.)

I feel sorry for the guy, not the 747 pilot, but the kamikaze guy in the F-14A jet fighter…  and the situation is not funny! It does remind me of showing off for the passengers on that 747 so many years before. It could have been me that went from 33 miles per hour to zero in 20 seconds.

Most of my adventures throughout my boring life were because of showing off. Just think of how dull my life would have been without these two stories.

Us country boys would entertain ourselves by listening to the corn growing during the heat of early July. Yes, you can hear corn growing if you listen very closely.

In 1964 Coatesville, Indiana, about all there was for boys to do was listen to the corn growing. I guess in between, we also listened to the soybeans throwing, as was the custom in that farming community. (We would climb atop Brown’s Drug Store and throw beans onto the roof of cars that stopped at our only stop sign. (You should have heard the clatter!)

There are many airport stories in my life. I will someday write about the woman dying to meet me. I will tell you about jumping the freeway in a rental car to make the plane. I will write about my boss irritating a man just because of his color. I will tell you about how I found a seat on a full plane. I will tell you about all the things that were so boring.

One of my students — a young girl — called herself, “The girl without a life.” Life is there if you dare look around.

Note: There were five people who died that day. This is not intended to diminish the loss of precious human lives, but heaven is just the other side of death, so this is a reminder that we must be vigilant.